How do you feel?
by Meeswa
Summary: A short one shot describing Bender's emotions with a slight bit of the pairing Fender at the end, originally written as a headcanon but it sort of turned into its own little thing.


How do you feel?

Bender's not built to sustain emotions, he wasn't supposed to have them, and he wasn't designed be able to obtain them but 1000 plus years of advancement in technology has got to count for something I guess, and that something is adaptability, the average robots base programming allows it to adapt to almost any situation within a reasonable time period both mentally and sometimes physically, often without the robot in question even conscious of it, its not unlike how humans under go change.

In short adaptation is something robots do even better then humans, but as previously stated there are limits, such as having complex emotions, robots aren't designed to be able to have much emotional depth or mental depth for that matter as a last ditch attempt to set them apart ever so slightly from humans, and while robots do tend to show mimicry of emotions very outwardly they often don't really _feel _them even as they show them so elaborately.

Bender however has always been, well, different, call it a small unseen glitches in his programming not unlike his lack of a back up unit, as in both glitches probably came from the quick sputter in the manufacturing machines own programming as it assembled him.

Its pure coincidence that Bender out of all the bending units being assembled in that factory became ever so slightly defected in a way that connected him to humanity more then most bots, not enough for any scanning unit to notice mind you, but if not for it he probably would have died that day in the suicide booth, it was a genuine emotional urge somewhere deep down in his processors to not go back for another round, to follow instead of stay and off himself, yet it was the same defect that put him there in the first place.

The thing about that though is robots aren't _supposed_ to feel like that, shallow non complex emotions sure of course, their not supposed to ever contemplate offing themselves though, they shouldn't even be able to comprehend the subject of willingly going to their death, and the ones that do use suicide booths do it without even comprehending it at all, yet somehow a certain bending unit defied the odds.

But as previously stated while Bender may have deeper emotions then the average bot, he's not built to sustain them, feeling just isn't something robots are designed to do, and when they do its often not good for them, as in when feeling something that would make a emotionally stable human perhaps slouch down a little, most of the battle going on in their head so to speak, Bender could be completely torn up about it if the circumstances where right and act rashly about whatever has upset him, could being the keyword, as with any defect consistency isn't something you should rely on.

In a sense he feels more then even most humans, but in reality he feels much less its just the circuit board designed to transmit emotions is so incredibly small that it overloads with sometimes volatile results, he's somewhere in the middle really, not quite as shallow as a robot or as deep as a human, emotionally speaking.

Although it really comes down to whats around him, if he spends time around robots he feels over emotional, if he spends time around humans he feels like a cold heartless automaton, something that he used to boast with pride, but with every year he spends at planet express and around humans the more that it feels like a terribly bad thing, and I come back to adaptability, over the years Bender has adapted to become even more human, so much so that to the casual on looker he seems almost, alive, but again there are limits, and its likely that in some way he will always feel inept at having emotions when every one around him is so full of life, but oh does he try to fit in.

He goes from feeling dead and cold hearted inside one moment and overloading with emotions the next, he either feels left out or overly emotional over the meatbags that he hates to love so much, and your god does he love one _so much _that its painful.

Fry makes him feel, Fry draws the emotions that he tries to bury because feels them so strongly out, and he makes him feel _human_, more so then anyone or anything ever has, not like some unstable in between, and he probably couldn't rely on someone more, because Fry makes him pained, joyful, depressed, enraged, and every word regarding emotion in his vocabulary circuit, and sometimes he makes him feel like he might just be human enough to fit in.

"All those times I said kill all humans, I'd always whisper except one, Fry was that one, and I never told him so."

**Authors note: Well I hope you all enjoyed that as much as I enjoyed writing it, and you know I had a million things to say about this fic but i put off posting it and forgot about 99.8 of those things so now all i really have to say is: its here, I'm pretty sure its not too bad, and i appreciate you if you took the time to read this.**


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